Soundgarden new album video clip released
Over eight years after Chris Cornell passed away, Soundgarden are finally putting together what will be their last album featuring their late frontman. The band began working on the record shortly before Cornell’s death in 2017, but legal disputes with the singer’s estate kept the project on hold until an agreement was reached in 2023. Matt Cameron has uploaded a clip from recording the album.
In a new interview with Allison Hagendorf, recorded the day before Soundgarden’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction earlier this month, the surviving members reflected on what it has been like to work on this music after all these years.
Bassist Ben Shepherd recalled a moment that seemingly caught him off guard, when it suddenly hit him that they were back to making a Soundgarden album.
“I was going to get coffee down the hall from the control room, and Nate and Terry [Date] were playing it back — Nate’s our assistant engineer on it. It was, like, ‘Holy hell, that’s Soundgaren. It’s so cool to hear it again,’” Shepherd said.
Speaking about the process of revisiting recordings and song ideas from nearly a decade ago and shaping them into a new record, guitarist Kim Thayil explained:
“Yeah, it’s like we had these various demos, and you had a particular quality. And it was, like, ‘Okay, how do we flesh this out?’ And then we start doing it, and it’s, like, ‘This sounds different.’ It’s almost like you can pinpoint before and after. It’s, like, ‘Now it’s Soundgarden.’”
While the band says the upcoming album – which is being produced by “Badmotofinger” and “Louder Than Love” procedure Terry Date – stays true to Soundgarden’s roots, it also marks an evolution in their sound.
“There’s very familiar elements in some of this new music, but, yeah, there was a couple songs that felt like it was kind of a new chapter or it could have been a new chapter. So it’s really exciting to hear that. It’s bittersweet, of course,” drummer Matt Cameron said.
“But, yeah, I’m really excited for people to hear it, have our fans hear it. It’s fun for us to be working on it,” he added. “And sometimes listening to it, it’s overpowering. But, yeah, I’m super proud of the music that we did put together. And we’re pretty close [to finishing it]. And, yeah, it is nice having Terry on board with us, for sure.”
